Snapped: What pictures from the Nokia 808 PureView 41-megapixel camera phone look like

Nokia has released 11 sample photos snapped with the new 41 megapixel Nokia 808 PureView camera phone so we can see what all the fuss is about.

The new Symbian-powered phone announced at Mobile World Congress is capable of capturing images at three different resolutions - 5, 8, and 38 megapixels - giving users massive amounts of scope on what is possible. To put it into perspective, that's enough to print an image the size of a billboard or - as Nokia expects will be more the case - zoom enough to capture any part of the picture regardless of how far away it is.

The cameraphone, which has taken more than five years to develop, is unlikely to appeal to everyone. However in a ray of hope for Nokia's new Windows Phone 7 smartphone users, the company says it will be bringing experiences learnt from the project to more approachable and more accessible devices in the future.

In the meantime feast your eyes on the accompanying snaps from Nokia. The close-up shots are created by us merely grabbing a 555px screenshot of the image after downloading the full-resolution version. As you can see, the detail is very much still there even though we've cropped the picture considerably. For those that are number counting the full shot of the man dangling off a rock (above) measures 7,152 x 5368 px.

We especially like the detail captured in the pictures below.

We will make sure we get you a Nokia 808 PureView review as soon as the phone becomes available, so we can see how the camera performs in less-impressive settings - like down the pub.

What do you think? Do you want this camera on your phone? Let us know in the comments below.